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Full-time MPs
Last Friday, in a speech at a function organised by the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association Ltd (GMSA), the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Harinarayan (Ralph) Ramkarran, suggested that the time has come for Guyana to consider having full-time Members of Parliament (MPs).
Dealing with the specific topic, ‘The National Assembly as a facilitator and promoter of investment and business activities in Guyana’, he argued that, “The establishment of strong and independent relationships between business organisations and Parliamentary committees is proper and desirable, as it is the duty of all stakeholders on both sides to seek out opinions and to offer opinions.”
He proposed that the vehicle for the dialogue between the business and political communities may be the Economic Services Committee.
Mr Ramkarran was, of course, alluding to one of the four sectoral committees in Parliament that had been established to enable the Legislative branch to “scrutinize” the activities of the Executive. The others are the Natural Resources, Social Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.
Their mandate spanned the gamut of governmental initiative, and had been the result of great struggle in the effort to enlarge the democratic process in Guyana.
The Opposition had long complained that they were locked out from the day-to-day workings of governance, and were thus reduced to playing, at best, an auditing role in the Public Accounts Committee, and at worst, making noises in the National Assembly during debates that inevitably amounted to naught, as the Government always had the numbers to carry the argument and the day.
In the Sectoral Committees, while the Government still retained 5-4 majorities, the Chairs are rotated annually between the Government and the Opposition. This was not an inconsiderable gain for the Opposition in ensuring that matters of its concern were placed on the agenda — and also fairly ventilated.
The smaller number of members in the Committees also fostered a more collegial atmosphere that eschewed the endemic compulsion for grandstanding present in the Parliamentary debates.
With the authority to invite any member of the Government – and even state institutions such as the police – to present testimony on issues before them, combined with its power to hire experts to advise them, the Sectoral Committees were indeed potentially powerful tools to deepen democracy and accountability in our land.
So why have we not seen more results from this initiative? The Speaker pointed to two constraints in his presentation: the need for “larger and better trained staff” and “full-time Members of Parliament (MPs)”. On the latter, he was unequivocal that it “must be on the agenda, if Parliamentary oversight, which is being increasingly seen as the key to the development of accountability, is to be effective.”
We agree. To continue with the present system is not only to ensure that its encounters with civil organisations, such as the GMSA, are spasmodic and inevitably desultory, and to deepen the prevalent sentiment in the wider society that Parliament is just an empty “talk shop”.
Most members of the public are unaware that the salaries of the MPs, who are grandiosely trumpeted as representing their views in the “highest forum in the land” and “the highest lawmaking body,” are just a token stipend because they are supposed to be just “part timers”.
Maybe this might have been the case when all MPs had to do was show up at the thirty or so annual sittings that had become the norm in the past. But with the increased utilisation of the committee system — not just the four sectoral ones, but the myriad standing committees such as Constitutional Reform, and special committees to review contentious legislation etc., the demands on part-timers are just too onerous: even with the nominal “top-up” that committee members receive.
The Speaker recognised the funding constraints that bedevil this and any administration, and suggested that we may begin by hiring full-time MPs for the chairs and deputy chairs of the sectoral committees and possibly the Public Accounts Committee.
We respectfully suggest that we should bite the bullet and make all MPs full-timers. Because there are at present enough committees in Parliament to occupy every MP, the gain to better governance will be immeasurable as we develop experts in every field of national endeavour, as is evident, for instance, in the US Congressional Committee system.
We take our hats off to the Speaker for raising this issue.
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